Nightmare
by Chalkboard Dragonfly
Summary: Sometimes our worst nightmares are the most mundane.
1. Chapter 1

"Pretty Christine."

Her husband's murmur barely reached her ears, though he stood directly behind her as she fussed with her hair. She should have had a maid; they certainly had the means for one, but circumstances being what they were, it was not practical.

"Will you back up, please? I don't want to elbow you," she said, trying to keep the annoyance she felt at his presence from insinuating itself into her voice.

He obliged, and she bit back a sigh. How terribly unkind she felt. He had delivered on every one of his promises as best he could, and still she could a hardly muster the patience to deal with him. They lived above ground in a normal house. After throwing all of his formidable intellect into the project, he had finally been able to create a mask that allowed him to appear as a normal man. When he was wearing it, which was most of the time, she could almost forget the horror underneath it. As far as she knew, he had not done anything truly wicked since their marriage. He was trying.

When he inevitably lost his temper (Christine found it difficult to obey her husband without question), he mostly managed to control himself. He had shoved her against the wall once, an inexpensive little vase had once flown past her head to shatter against the doorframe behind her, and all manner of curses would stream from his lips, turning his angelic voice into something hideous and frightening, but he did not strike her. After each incident, he would present her with some sort of gift, usually jewelry. She was amassing quite the collection of things she did not want. She knew it should have been those incidents that caused her grief, but mostly it was the way he dogged her steps that drove her to distraction. She could not even visit Mamma Valerius without him being right there, hanging on her every word.

Why had she ever agreed to marry Erik? Ever since she had learned he was a man, she had known he would only make her miserable. A beginning built on deception could not lead to a good ending. Had she really been naive enough to think that marrying him was better than marrying no one? As a single girl, her time had been her own. And she was still so young, there might have been someone else, someone who didn't make her feel as if she were suffocating merely by being in the same room.

She finished pinning her hair, and Erik's slightly trembling hands rested on her shoulders. She looked at his false face in the mirror, at his bizarre yellow eyes. She wished they were blue, like Raoul's. She had not thought of her childhood friend in years. She caught herself smiling, thinking of the last time they had met, not children anymore, but not grown either. Her father had still been alive.

"I love to see my wife smile." Erik's voice quivered with his affection, and Christine's face slipped back into its usual stoic expression. She would not tell him that her smile had not been, and would never be for him. Instead she patted one of the hands resting on her shoulder with all of the affection she could muster, knowing she would never be able to shake off the guilt which gnawed at her constantly.


	2. Chapter 2

**Note:** I decided to continue it after all. I'm not sure if there will be more after this vignette or not, but if inspiration strikes me again, there could be. There's nothing explicit here, but the relationship presented is both sexual and unhealthy. I see where it might make some people uncomfortable. I upped the rating to M for that reason, even though I feel like it's probably only a T.

* * *

"So soft," Erik murmured more to himself than to her as his bony fingers caught the ends of her hair.

She had turned away from him on the bed, though experience told her that it made no difference. She could not pretend he was not there when he insisted on playing with her hair, or running his cold hands down her arm and laughing softly when he raised goosebumps along her flesh. There was no pretending the wetness leaking down her thighs wasn't there, either. Just once, she wanted him to hand her a towel and leave after he had finished. Instead, he insisted in prolonging their encounters with this sort of contact. He reminded her of a hungry kitten Mamma Valerius had taken in years ago. Long after the danger of starvation had passed, the cat had continued to eat all of the food he was given, as well as any he might find. Even once he had grown very fat and lazy, the mere possibility of food had brought him waddling at full speed, anxious to get whatever he could. Only instead of food, Erik gorged himself on touch.

Oh, what a terrible wife she was - that was the knowledge that got her through it each time. In her heart, she knew she was cold and unfeeling, but her body was not, and she could share that at least. It was the perfect punishment for her failure to properly love her husband. It was not that he was cruel during their intimacies, though he was sometimes rough with her, it was that despite her disgust at his physical appearance, and how much he annoyed her, he could coax her into doing things she never thought she would. He could debase and humiliate her without realizing what he was doing. It was his revenge, though he did not know it, and she would let him have it. She only wished she could ask outright for punishment, and unleash the monster completely. Yet she knew that if she did, all she would unleash was a lost little boy whose own mother would not kiss him. It was better that he did not know.

The mattress moved as he shifted closer, wrapping her in his thin arms. She snuggled into his embrace, her back pressed to his chest. This was much less irksome than when he fiddled with her hair, or petted her as though she were an animal. When he held her like this, she felt like she could be absorbed by him, become a part of him with no will of her own, and then she would love him and finally be a good wife.

"Are you sad that we've never had a child?" Erik asked, his voice slightly muffled as his face was buried in her hair.

"No," she replied. It had been nearly three years, and she was relieved that they were not a fertile couple. A child did not need a lump of ice for a mother, or a father who often moved from sorrow to rage to manic joy and back again in the space of a few minutes. "Are you?"

"No. You are enough for me." His words fell heavily upon her, raising her guilt and self-disgust. "I only thought it might make you happy. You are always a little melancholy."

"That is just me, Erik." She turned in his embrace, settling her head against his shoulder while being careful to breathe through her mouth. "I think that you are enough for me, too," she lied in a voice barely above a whisper.

As he gently tilted her face upward so he could place his malformed lips on her forehead, she wished she could tell him the truth.


	3. Chapter 3

Christine could not believe that Erik would let her be alone with Raoul, or any man, even for a second. She had, and would continue to pay the price, but he had promised she could visit her old friend unaccompanied. Raoul had come home from the rescue mission aboard the Requin as a hero, and he would be returning to the Arctic on an expedition that hoped to succeed where the D'Artoi's expedition had failed.

They had not seen one another in years, not since they were awkward teenagers and he had promised to never forget her. Then one night, she had spied him at the Opera. He had come to visit her in her dressing room. Erik had been there in his mask that made him look like anyone, and she had fawned over her husband like a lovesick girl in Raoul's presence. Erik had lapped up the attention, and Raoul had been suitably convinced that she was happily married.

In her hopes that her husband would allow her to continue her renewed friendship, she had made a concentrated effort to be the best wife she could be. She did as she was told without question. She did not allow herself to betray any of her annoyance when he hovered and petted her incessantly, and she showed him far more affection than she felt. She even found a new enthusiasm for their marriage bed, which was largely due to imagining she was with her boyishly handsome friend while carefully keeping Erik's name on her lips. The illusion was often shattered because she had difficulty picturing Raoul asking for so many of the things Erik demanded, but up to reaching that breaking point, it helped.

And now they were finally alone. They stood facing one another with their hands clasped. She struggled not to cry as she looked into his pretty blue eyes. His eyelashes were so long.

"Raoul... I..." She had pictured this moment in her mind so many times, but she had never planned precisely what she would say to him. She blinked and the tears began to fall.

He let go of her hands to search for a handkerchief, and she wanted to beg him to stop, to touch her again. Instead she dried her eyes with the handkerchief. "I'm sorry," she said weakly.

"What is it?" he asked gently.

"I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too. I meant it when I said I would never forget you."

Those words had the opposite of their intended effect, and she began to cry harder. One of his hands came to rest on her shoulder.

"What is it?" he repeated.

"Come home safely," she finally said.

"I will. I've done it once before," he replied with a hint of bewilderment in his voice.

Suddenly, she was angry. "Oh you don't understand!" Christine exclaimed, balling up the handkerchief in her fist.

"What do you mean?"

"I know we hadn't seen each other in years, and that we've hardly been the best of friends since meeting again... But I thought you would understand."

"What don't I understand?" Raoul inquired with patience.

She realized that he was speaking to her as one might to a child, and she was torn between pulling away completely and throwing herself at him. "There are so few people I can think of as my own, and they are all dead now except for my husband and you. Come home safely, Raoul."

"Oh," was all he said. She could not bring herself to look at him, because she felt so foolish, confessing to him what he had meant to her for all these years, when she had so obviously been less important to him.

To her surprise, his arms closed around her. "I'll come home, Christine. Don't cry. I'll come home, and I won't be such a stranger to you. I promise."

His pressed a brotherly kiss against her temple, and she debated turning her head and capturing his lips with her own. She wanted to tell him how miserable she was, to beg him to save her. Instead she clung to him, weeping desperately, and hoping he did not think she was completely mad. Even if he did not reject her, all she would do was corrupt and defile him as Erik had done to her.


	4. Chapter 4

"You came back!" Erik fell to his knees before her the moment she opened the front door. He tore the mask from his face and began frantically covering her hands in kisses.

"You thought I would not?"

He looked up at her with the old dog-like devotion in his eyes. His pallor was exceptional, even for him, and he vibrated with nervous energy. "I thought... I thought you might leave your poor Erik - run away with your friend - but you came home."

Christine knitted her brow in confusion. "Then why did you let me go?"

"To see if you would come back to me, and you have." He squeezed her hands tightly, and resumed covering them in kisses.

"What would you have done if I had not?" Surely, she had not missed the only opportunity he had ever given her to leave? Her heart fluttered in her chest, and she closed her eyes in an attempt to ease a wave of vertigo.

"I would have come after you," he replied, "But I just needed to know."

She gently pulled herself out of his grasp to remove her gloves and hat. Erik rose to his feet and put her hat away while she smoothed her hair.

"Your eyes are red," he observed. "He made you cry." The tone of his voice shifted slightly when he asked, "Was he cruel to you, my dear? Did he reject you?"

"Oh, what are you saying? I only asked him to come home safely, and then I cried because I am silly."

"Are you certain of that?" The edge in his tone becoming more pronounced.

"That I grew silly and sentimental?" She fought to keep her voice sounding chipper. "Quite certain, yes."

He advanced on her now, and she retreated closer to the wall. "You did not ask him to take you away from your husband?"

"Why would I?" She heard the quiver in her voice, and detested it.

"Because he is everything I am not; because you love him."

She wanted to sink into the floor. How could he know what she'd certainly never told him? She'd been so careful to make it seem like her affection for Raoul was sisterly in nature.

"You don't say anything back. You can't even pretend to deny it!" If Erik's hands hadn't been behind his back, she would have been afraid that he would actually hit her this time.

"Don't be absurd! He wouldn't know what to do with me in any capacity." Not after what you've done to me, what I've let you do, she continued internally before adding aloud, "Even if I thought he might, I promised you that I would never leave you, and I won't."

That softened him, and he grasped her face in his hands. "You are a good wife," he said gently.

Before she could stop herself, she laughed.

His hands tightened and her cheeks pressed painfully against her teeth. He would be horrified if there were marks on her face later. "Why are you laughing at me?"

Speaking carefully so as not to bit the insides of her cheeks, she answered, "One moment you are ecstatic I have returned, then you instantly accuse me of attempting infidelity, only to tell me I'm a good wife. You have to admit, it is a little funny." She brought her hands up to rest on his, hoping that would signal him to loosen his grip on her face.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he moaned.

She guided him to the sofa so they could sit, only he collapsed on the floor in front of her, burying his face in her lap and sobbing. She petted his thin hair and babbled comforting nonsense to him. Once he finally stopped crying, she brushed his wet cheek. He released a shuddering sigh and drew the tips of her index and middle fingers into his mouth. Years ago, she might have pulled away in disgust, now she only resumed stroking his hair with her free hand.

This was what they had: He was terrified of losing her, and she of inflicting pain on him. Perhaps it was better than nothing, but she could not know.

 **Note:** Again, I'm not sure if this is it or not. Hopefully I can concentrate on some of the research I was doing for A Wonderful Stroke of Luck and get back to that. Hopefully, you enjoyed this little aside; if not I understand. It was just something I needed to get out of my system.


	5. Chapter 5

**Note:** I decided to live up the end rating. This installment is an explanation from how they got from the first installment where she's barely touching him, to the relationship they have later. It's not anything extreme, but it's not exactly sweet and fluffy, either. If you've read enough of what I've written, you might have gathered that I'm not a very fluffy person, at least not where this pairing is concerned. (Also, I really am working on A Wonderful Stroke of Luck, but Raoul and his Arctic adventure are currently giving me fits.)

When Christine had agreed to marry Erik, it was with the understanding that their union would not be a physical one. Theirs was a marriage based on music, a tentative, mistrustful friendship on her part, and on chaste and respectful adoration on his part, or so he had assured her repeatedly. She should have known he was lying - he'd lied so smoothly from the start - but she'd wanted so badly to believe him.

It started with a request for a kiss, not even a kiss on the lips, but a kiss on the forehead. No one had ever kissed him, not even his own mother. He shook and cried, sure of her rejection even as he asked. How could she deny him something so small? He had been so grateful and happy in the following days that she volunteered another kiss, and when, later still, he had asked if he might kiss her, she had steeled her nerves and allowed him. It became a normal thing between them to exchange forehead kisses, or to kiss one another's cheeks as good friends might. It was not so terrible.

They began to sometimes hold hands, too. His were perpetually clammy, and she would have to repress a shudder every time he took her hand in his. It was the worst when neither of them wore gloves, and he would intertwine their fingers and then stroke the back of her hand with his thumb. The first time he had done that, she'd pulled away on instinct. He had called her horrible names, and vibrating with anger, had punched a wall. She knew better than to pull away from him again.

Then one night, after they'd both had a little too much to drink, he asked if he might kiss her lips. She wavered back and forth, weighing the consequences of yes and no. She had decided on no, but as she caught his eye, observed his tense posture, she knew that answer would crush him. And who knew how he might lash out? What if he finally hit her, or did something to injure himself in his grief and rage? She poured herself another glass of wine, downed it quickly, and then agreed. She expected a brief peck, but that was not what she received. Whether his actions were the result of his own alcohol consumption, or because he knew she was a little drunk, she never knew. His lips lingered on hers. They were chapped, and scraped hers as he continued to kiss her, capturing first her upper lip, then her bottom lip. His breath was sour from the alcohol, but she could not escape - he held her head tightly in his hands. When his tongue darted out of his mouth to skirt along her lower lip, she had nearly gagged. Though he could not have known, in her guilt, she allowed him to hold her after he released her from the kiss. She had never been this close to him for such an extended period before. He was too bony, and she did not like the way he smelled - sweat combined with that strange dead smell he always carried. He'd stroked her hair, and murmured sweet sounding nonsense to her, and she had relaxed, listening to his heartbeat speeding away in his chest. It had continued to progress from there.

It was over a span of months, but it still seemed to happen so quickly... Little bits of physical affection given here and there, progressing in their intimacy. Before she knew it, she was lying on her bed while Erik greedily explored her body with his eyes and cold, trembling hands. She had shivered violently, and while he apologized, and sworn he would try to warm his hands next time, he did not cease his actions. Next time - of course there would be a next time. There had been a next time with everything else, and she was foolish to think he would only want to touch her like this once, and then be done, whatever curiosity he had, satisfied. She'd felt as though she'd never get warm again, even once he had stopped touching her and had pulled the covers up to her chin. When the promised next time occurred, Erik's hands hands were warmer, and his mouth had joined in his efforts. At first, she was completely repulsed, but as she closed her eyes, she realized it did not feel so terrible. She kept her eyes clenched shut as his hands and mouth traveled down her body. She could hear herself whimpering, but it was not in terror. She could not stop herself from making the little noises issuing from her throat any more than she could stop her hips from pushing forward against Erik's fingers, lips, and tongue.

And then it happened, his weight shifted, and he was over her, her bent knees on either side of his body. She kept her eyes clenched shut as she could hear him fumbling with his clothes. She knew what he was doing, and part of her wanted to yell at him to stop, but a louder voice told her to remain silent. They were married, after all, and this was what married people were supposed to do. What sort of woman would she be if she let her husband paw all over her, but then denied him the obvious end goal of his efforts? After a few false starts, he swiftly, painfully invaded her. She clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. He pulled out just as quickly as he had entered her.

"I am so sorry my dear; I did not mean to hurt you." He brushed her cheek with his hand, shuddered deeply, and said, "Oh, you have no idea how good that felt." Then he had left her alone. She had sobbed into her pillow feeling dirty and ruined, and thinking that she did know exactly how good it felt, which only made her sob harder.

A few days after that, they found themselves in the same position, and as she internally repeated that she must let him do this because it would be cruel not to let him, that she deserved it, he'd done it again, only now there was little pain, just some uncomfortable stretching and when she did not cry out, he did not stop. She began to understand how the sensation might be considered mildly pleasurable, though not so much as when he had simply touched her. When he was finished, which did not take long, though it felt like eternity, he collapsed onto her, crying, while she awkwardly patted his shoulder, and wished she could break down again, too. Christine spent the remainder of the month in absolute terror of conceiving a child. That terror had stayed with her throughout the first year of their physical relationship, to the point where, when he had suggested spilling his seed on other parts of her body, she had repressed her disgust at the idea and agreed.

That he could leave her shuddering in pleasure and gasping for air, even as he repulsed her was no less than she deserved. She hated herself, but she could not hate him. And though she might dream of leaving, she knew she never would. Something was deeply wrong inside of her, and she had come to believe that Erik was the only person who understood.


	6. Chapter 6

Erik's long body was curled up, wrapped around his wife, his head resting on her breast. He turned his face slightly to plant a small kiss on her. He had never stopped marveling at the way her skin felt on his lips, and if not for the irritated little huff that escaped her lips, he would have kept kissing her with no goal other than to feel her softness. If he were younger, she would have truly hated him, because he would have never let her leave the bed. Erik held no illusions about his physical presence; how she stood his touch at all, he did not know, but he was grateful that she did. She had become his outlet, even more so than music.

"I'm sorry," he murmured against her skin.

"You always do things like that just as I'm falling asleep," she complained. "Why can't you ever be still?"

He had no answer for her, so he lay his head back down. He did not necessarily want her to see that she had wounded him with her admonishment, but if she sensed it, she would feel guilty and then...

Her arm encircled his shoulders, and her other hand stroked his head. Affection motivated by guilt and obligation was better than none at all; Erik would take whatever he could get.

He knew Christine was not happy. He behaved respectably so that she would not be ashamed of him. He tried his hardest to control his temper so that she would not be afraid of him. He allowed her plenty of freedom, and gave her nearly everything she could want so that she might harbor some affection for him. It was not enough. The only time he had ever seen her face alight with joy was when she had seen the Vicomte de Chagny at the Opera, and he had never seen her look sadder than when she had returned from her private visit with the young man. She checked the papers daily for any news of the expedition, and did her best to play it off as though she had always had an interest in Arctic exploration, and he had somehow failed to notice.

Erik tried to tell himself that it did not matter; she had married him. It had been out of hopelessness, and he had lured her into it on what turned out to be false pretenses, but she had still done it. He had intended to respect the boundaries laid out at the beginning of their marriage, but he could not do it. When he had asked for a kiss, it was only because he wanted a little bit of her kindness. She had such a kind heart, even if she had ceased to see it. So he had asked a little more from her, and a little more, until it had completely gotten away from him. There was certainly no going back now, no way to bottle up the years isolation, of self-loathing, of pent-up desire, sorrow, and rage now that they had found their release. He poured all of it into Christine, and for a few moments, felt almost normal.

Poor girl. Surely he was the most unlovable man to have ever walked the planet, and she was quite the martyr to tolerate him the way she did. How he worshiped her for it! Still, he wished that she could love him, that he could light up her eyes the way even the barest mention of her old friend did, but he knew it was impossible. Even if he had been good looking, and had led a normal life, he doubted that he would have put such a glow on her face. Raoul de Chagny belonged to her golden childhood with her father. Erik could not compete with that. Even when he sang to her, she did not look at him the way she had looked at her friend.

He knew she thought about Raoul when they were in bed together. On one level, he did not care. Her thinking of another man did not change the course of what actually occurred. His more vindictive side screamed at him to demand more from her, to degrade her, to ruin her fantasy and remind her that she belonged to Erik alone. He only indulged this cruel impulse on rare occasions, and even then he never took it anywhere near the extremes that played out in his mind, backing down before he had even started. He could not bring himself to destroy the trust that existed between them. She did not reciprocate his love, but she had surrendered herself to letting him love her. It was better than nothing. He never should have received even this from her, and it was foolish that he still hoped for more.

He sat up suddenly, and hugged his knees to his chest, fighting the urge to sob.

"What is it?" Christine asked sleepily.

"It's nothing," he replied. "I'm sorry I woke you again."

She sighed and turned on her side facing away from him and pulling the covers over her shoulders.

He rose slowly from the bed and left the room, determined to be quiet. He couldn't play anything, couldn't pace anxiously, couldn't bang his head on the wall, or scream out the question that was always on his mind: "What must I do to make you love me?"

 **Note:** I had to give Erik a voice.

Points to anyone who knows what song (think 90s) inspired a little bit of this chapter. I don't think it's terribly hard to guess.


End file.
